Board Game Research

Board Games Transition into Modern Media

Intro
These days board games can be can be played from your games console and online games sites and you can do this with friends across the world. Within the last 20 years modern technology has greatly advanced, we have seen the birth of the games console, personal computing and the internet. Will this make board games as we know them obsolete?

Advertising
Since 1940, TV commercials have become one of the most effective, persuasive, and popular method of selling products of many sorts, board games included. Thanks to advertisement millions of board games are sold every year, you only need to go into you local toy store and see the large variation of games to see its popularity. While this is still the main source of advertising, campaigns have started to move onto the internet.

The Transition
Board games popularity has needed to keep up with modern times e.g. monopoly using a chip and pin reader instead of money; more and more we are seeing board games turning up on the games console market places and on the internet, it seems that the direction of the board games is digital. There seems to be a big generation gap between people who only like board games and people that like digital games.
On a computer you can’t lose the pieces, you can play with people across the world, it’s convenient and easy to setup and no tidying. The other side of the argument is that you lose the tactile experience of the game, and using a computer is less social than playing with friends and family around the dining room table.

We have slowly started to see the board games arrive on pc’s e.g. 1985 spectrum, commodore 64 1988 windows 3.0 1990; showing that the industry has realised a need for their merchandise to be available in this format – this also shows the growing demand for computer versions, as this fills a gap in the market as the only way to reach teen-twenties audiences. Previously, the only way they tried to reach the teen market was by producing many different versions of the same game i.e. monopoly has many: Simpsons, lord of the rings etc. and a star wars versions of risk.

One of the biggest challenges for the board game makers of today is making something innovative enough that it will capture the imagination of the next gen consumer. They have tried to make it more exciting for those who are not computer literate whilst also including a more social aspect by using touchscreen pub machines with lots of games, which can be activated with money. This has added new elements like gambling into the game to try to make them more exciting. But this then asks the question, are they really board games anymore?

ConclusionAlthough the board game industry has made a leap into the digital medium and has established itself a part of the new market, sales of board games remain constant and the large fanbase will continue, as it has been a traditional family concept for a millennia.Bibliography
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_advertisement

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(video_game)